


in a cottage by the river

by orphan_account



Category: Peter Darling - Austin Chant
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 15:52:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Finding a place and a life and a future after Neverland, in scattered moments of Peter's new reality.





	in a cottage by the river

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boywonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boywonder/gifts).



They dance around things, in this world. A little awkward, a little hesitant, because this world doesn’t come with clear parts - the pirate king, the wild prince - and neither of them fits perfectly into their Neverland part, now, either. Peter is-but-isn’t Pan and James is-but-isn’t Hook, and that in itself takes enough effort to figure out on both their parts.

James is the one that fits most easily back into things, it seems. Peter, on the other hand, goes back and forth constantly - joyous about this life one day and missing Neverland so hard that it aches the next - and doesn’t know what to make of any of it, of being here and having a future that’s both real and belonging to _Peter_ , not Wendy. Of being able to be Peter without giving up his body and his life and his memories.

(but still his family, either way, and sometimes that’s enough to have him wishing for his first, ignorant moments back in Neverland, before he’d even had to remember why he was there and what he’d given up for good)

James seems to take it all in stride well enough, though, and on the worst days Peter finds himself wondering how it is that _Captain Hook_ turned out to be the one who can look at him and find something worthwhile in him - in the _real_ him, not who he was supposed to be and never quite got the hang of faking - no matter what kind of state he’s in. No matter how petulant and vicious he can be in the depths of those bad days, no matter how times he falls back into the worst of Pan because the dream feels safer even in the real world, James will look him in the eyes and call him by his name until it fits again.

“You make it all seem so easy,” he tells him once. “Like there’s no question of me being anyone but Peter when you look at me, even… like this.”

The wry smile he gets in return has a little more of Hook in it than is often the case. “I wouldn’t say _easy_ was the right word for any dealings with you, in this world or any other. But it would take more than a body or a voice or any other trivial thing to make you less than Peter.”

(he still hasn’t always got the hang of remembering that himself, but he’s getting there)

* * *

It takes weeks before Peter manages to work up the courage to let James see and touch him properly, weeks spent kicking himself over being so _afraid_. He’s Peter Pan, who fears nothing, except for the part where this isn’t Neverland and he’s Peter Darling, really, who in fact fears an awful lot of things but most of all losing the hope he’s tentatively formed of an actual life for himself.

It’s awkward, when it finally happens. There’s a lot more nervous fumbling than there had been in Neverland, and the real world turns out to be a lot less forgiving of things like ‘elbow placement’ than Neverland evidently had been. Peter elbows James more than once by accident and James’ first attempts to navigate this different body have him pinching Peter’s clit too hard and getting the most undignified yelp in return, and it quickly becomes apparent to Peter that there is, in fact, more of a knack to getting someone with a cock off than just ‘grab it and move your hand’, on account of James having to actively inform him of that fact.

Honestly, all-in-all the best word for that first attempt would probably be ‘disaster’. It’s a not-entirely-unpleasant disaster, though, and the second attempt is an enjoyable-nonetheless disaster, and by the time they reach the third attempt they’re almost starting to get the hang of it all.

(‘enjoyable disaster’ is, in the end, not the worst way to describe this entire thing)

* * *

Peter does take up writing, after a few false starts and a few second-guesses. Once he’s gotten into the swing of it, it becomes its own form of adventure, one better suited for this complicated waking world and its unbending rules. He can’t go about killing pirates and fighting wars here - if he’d even had the stomach for that kind of thing anymore, which he doesn’t - but he can write about them if he wants, and about other things if he wants that. More often, it’s the other things.

Sometimes, it’s love, and if that feels too girlish in some way, it’s remedied easily enough by catching one of the looks that James sometimes directs at him when he thinks Peter isn’t looking. Because neither of them are girls, and yet love is most certainly what they have, and so the idea that writing about it is girlish is _ridiculous_ , and his mind and anyone else who would agree with it ought to stop with that _immediately_.

(he tells James that once, paces and rants about it and stamps his foot with each emphasized word, and James laughs with such affection in it that Peter writes three poems about him that very night)

* * *

A year after returning from Neverland, Peter sends letters to John and Michael.

 _I’m sorry that I had to leave, and that I haven’t contacted you before,_ they each say, both painstakingly written out in his neatest handwriting. _But know that I’m okay, and that I’m happy, and that I love both of you with all my heart._

He signs them both, _your loving brother, Peter Darling_. He doesn’t give a return address, out of fear of what would happen if his parents knew where he and James are living, but he likes to think that John and Michael would write back positively if they could.

(if James notices the way Peter sometimes looks longingly at their post, wishing for letters he knows can’t arrive, he’s polite enough not to bring it up)

* * *

A year and a half after their return, James gives him a ring. Just a plain bland, nothing flashy or overly-expensive - so far he’s come from Hook, Peter thinks fondly - and entirely for the sentiment, because James and Wendy could be married but Peter isn’t Wendy and James loves _him_ , not her. It still means the world to him, though, because it means a _future_. After all this time together, that’s something that Peter finally manages to believe in every day; a future of him writing and James painting, the both of them selling their work and getting by and sometimes, for the hell of it, running through the woods or wrestling or pushing each other into the river or whatever other wild fancy takes them that day, that hour, that minute.

(this is no dream, no Neverland story, but Peter has every intention of writing it a happy ending)


End file.
